Cointraffic
Cointraffic is a worldwide digital advertising platform for the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry based in Tallinn, Estonia. In 2019, the company reported serving 300 million unique ad impressions per month across a network of over 400 crypto websites. Cointraffic allows digital marketers to engage visitors and boost conversion rates through tailored banner, display and native advertising formats, through which they provide media publishers with a stable income stream from their website traffic. History Cointraffic was founded in 2014 by Sergei Verbitski, Yuri Filatov and Maxim Kalmokov. All founders had been involved in various niche cryptocurrency-related projects before the platform was started, and were among the earliest adopters of bitcoin. Their decision to start the company was based on the observation that advertising networks catering specifically to cryptocurrency advertisers was absent. They saw a great opportunity for future growth in building the technology to support this fast-rising industry. Over the last 5 years Cointraffic has grown from a small one-room office with a single developer to over 30 employees and €10M revenue, as of 2018. How it works Cointraffic has created a network with the aim of connecting cryptocurrency related advertisers and publishers. Both roles have separate working dashboards, which allow website owners to manage advertising positions on their websites, and advertisers to buy ads on those positions. This helps advertisers to use their budget in a smart way and buy related traffic on hundreds of different crypto-oriented websites all around the word. At the same time, it makes the frequently difficult task of monetization easier for publishers, allowing them to spend more time focusing on their website development tasks. In summary, Cointraffic’s unified advertising network is serving to build a bridge between crypto-oriented traffic creators and buyers. Technology Ad server The existence of an advertising network is only made possible through creation of an ad server. The ad server’s main tasks are defining which advertisements should appear on a publisher’s website and recording how many impressions and clicks were provided. This solution insures that ads are placed appropriately, according to the settings of individual websites. It also helps the discovery of fair prices for how much advertisers should be charged and publishers be paid. HTML5 Cointraffic was the first cryptocurrency advertising company to serve HTML5 banners. This technology allows for the creation of lightweight and easy resizable banners, while at the same time allowing them to contain animations and graphical effects. Features and services In 2019, the arsenal of Cointraffic services and ad formats consists of banner ads, press release distribution service, and native ads. Banner Ads Banner ads are available for both mobile and desktop users. There are 5 different banner formats which allow advertisers to get a maximum amount of exposure: In-page The most common format placement on a website page, available in all popular dimensions. Slide This ad sticks to the page corner and stays there, even when scrolling. Premium header The most visible and attractive position for a banner ad: placed above the entire website. Sticky This position is stuck to the bottom of the website and visible at all times. Background Massive position that covers the entire background of the website. Press Release Distribution With Cointraffic’s press release distribution service an advertiser can spread the word about their project, featured and/or updated on up to 65 cryptocurrency-related websites. This service includes writing or proofreading the copy with the entire distribution process taking up to 5 business days. The press release will then be published on top cryptocurrency media outlets, and a detailed report will be provided as soon as the distribution process is finished. Native Ads A native ad is a combined 'image + text' format that is organically built into the publisher’s website. This type of advertisement provides a massive amount of engagement and does not detract from user experience of the website. Native ads are a perfect instrument to send targeted traffic to an informational landing page, where they can then read more information about a product of service, as seen in a teaser. Markets covered The worldwide nature of an advertising network gives it the possibility of buying and selling traffic from different regions. The network can perform its operations successfully irrespective of what language or geography the network users are dealing with. Geo-targeting settings can filter these markets, specializing the advertising to be focused upon to make it locally relevant. At the same time, this helps insure that ads being displayed on publishers’ websites will always be relevant to their visitors. Costs calculation methodology Banner and native ads use CPM (cost per milestone) type calculations. This method is based on the number of impressions that a specific ad campaign has received. The price for traffic is calculated using batches of 1000 impressions. The press release distribution service fee is based on the number of websites being chosen for the campaign. The variation of websites is composed taking into account the client’s requests, such as targets, goals and geography. Ad content restrictions Cointraffic does not accept any inappropriate, misleading or unclear content for advertisement messages. Any adult-related, HIYP, and profit guaranteeing projects are also rejected from participation with their advertising services. Recognition As of 2019, Cointraffic has attended 10+ conferences all across the world as speakers, and 50+ conferences as participants. Cointraffic has supported dozens of crypto and blockchain conferences as a media and advertising sponsor, which has helped to bring a massive amount of attention to cryptocurrency technology all around the world. Resources Cointraffic website